https://www.them.us/story/heritage-foundation-project-2025-2026-plan-trump-administration
The plan appears to oppose trans people and same-sex marriage.Tom Williams/Getty Images
After spending this year working to implement as much of its gargantuan right-wing policy agenda, Project 2025, as possible, the Heritage Foundation has unveiled its anti-LGBTQ+ goals for 2026.Over the past month, the far-right think tank has been preparing for next year, releasing an ad campaign and doing multiple interviews about its plans. The activity has brought renewed attention on Heritage Foundation’s 2025-2026 policy priorities, which were titled “Restoring America’s Promise” when they were released in March. At the time, the group named nine key priorities, including “root[ing] out the deep state” and “counter[ing] the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”The bulk of its anti-LGBTQ+ goals lie in the priority titled “Put Family First,” in which the Heritage Foundation declares that “every child conceived deserves to be born to a married mother and father who will love, guide, and protect them throughout their lives.”
The organization goes on to claim that “family breakdown and rampant abortion tears at the soul of our country and saps it of strength and moral authority,” while “radical ideologies that deny social and biological truths about sexual embodiment, marriage, and unborn life poison our courts, our culture, and our laws.”
“The Heritage enterprise will advance policies at the state and federal level to restore the nuclear family to the center of American life and to reduce both the demand and supply for abortion at all stages of human development,” it concludes. This language appears to oppose same-sex marriage given its emphasis on children being born to a married father and mother. It also appears to oppose transgender identity given its condemnation of ideologies that “deny social and biological truths about sexual embodiment” — this falls inline with a longstanding Heritage Foundation fight against trans people.
Elsewhere, the Heritage Foundation indicates its anti-trans views in a priority titled “Expand Education Freedom,” in which the group declares that the education system is “failing our children” through “the scourge of woke ideas like critical theory and radical gender ideology.” The terminology “radical gender ideology” is often used by conservatives to refer to trans and nonbinary identities.
The Heritage Foundation has been around since 1973, when it was founded by conservatives who found President Richard Nixon too liberal and feared both fiscal liberalism and federal government expansion. It has been consistent in its campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights, from consulting with then-governor Mitt Romney to figure out ways around preventing the legalization of gay marriage from being implemented in Massachusetts to lobbying against Title IX protections for trans students implemented during the Obama administration.
More recently, the organization has made headlines for its 920-page policy blueprint Project 2025, which presents a far-right Christian vision for the second Trump administration that includes several anti-trans measures, as well as the dismantling of the Department of Education and undoing other federal checks and balances. Although the Heritage Foundation has been releasing regular “Mandate for Leadership” blueprints ahead of incoming presidential administrations since the 1980s, Project 2025 has received considerable attention given that the group staffed and advised the first Trump administration (in July 2024, a CNN review found that at least 140 people working for Trump were involved with the Heritage Foundation). One of Project 2025’s architects, Russell Vought, currently runs the Office of Management and Budget.
Following late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary removal in September, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr seemingly confirmed speculation that the Trump administration’s actions are a part of Project 2025. At the time, Glee star Kevin McHale shared an X post stating that “This was all in Project 2025,” after reposting another X post that framed right-wing attacks on media — which also include the Trump administration’s lawsuit against 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal — as First Amendment assaults. In response, Carr — who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC — shared a GIF of Jack Nicholson nodding in apparent confirmation.
As a recent The 19th report pointed out, the second Trump administration has fulfilled a number of Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ+ directives, including purging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data on gender identity and cutting federal funds for gender-affirming care.
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Abby Monteil is a New York-based writer. Her work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, Insider, Elite Daily, Thrillist, and others. … Read More
Scottie's Playtime 
Wouldn’t it be nice if — well I guess we all have to add our own thoughts there, but for me –if people would just love one another they way we each are without judging lifestyles. We were ALL created in God’s image and while some are straight others are gay, and being gay is not something anyone wakes up some morning and decided they want to do. Some people are born with genetic profiles that make them what they are, and why do others think they are wrong? Fear that they will try to turn them gay? That’s so stupid. And I’m not speaking about only Gay people, but everyone who for one reason or another does not fit somebody’s idea of what is okay and what is not. We were all born with different genetics, my own being Caucasian female. I’m comfortable this way, but one of my brothers always felt different, like something was missing in his life. He tried dating friends who were female but it never felt right to him. One day he felt an attraction to a wonderful person who happened to be male. He fought against it but it never felt right, so he finally admitted his orientation was not the same as others, began dating that guy and ultimately marrying him. When my brother died from a disease he developed while in the Air Force and stationed in Turkey we continue to regard Jay as our brother.
This is probably totally off the subject, but I wish someone could give me a good reason why it is okay for some people to dress in clothes that show more than they hide, engage in public acts of sexual encounters, and flit from one partner to another, while not okay for others to be in long term relations with one person who happens to be of the same sex. Okay, so I’m old and believe children should be the result of marriage, but who says I’m right? I’m just another human trying to get along with every other human, and live peacefully with my neighbors. I would like to think that if the government in the form of a sexual predator who has been tried and convicted of 24 felonies is not in prison for his real crimes he has no right to tell anyone at all how to think, act, or speak. The problem is not diversity — it’s apathy on the part of voters too lazy to go to the polls every 4 years and vote for the person qualified to govern, not the one that tells the best lies.
Sorry if this is so far from the subject. I’m just venting over how low this country has fallen and how much farther it has to hit rock bottom. Glad to be so old I won’t have to live for it all before the people wake up and admit their mistake in believing a con artists lies.
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Hi Angie. What a wonderful heartfelt comment. Please never worry about length as long as you add context to the post which you did. I value your voice. I don’t know if you saw any of my posts from Rev. Ed Trevors but he is an Anglican Priest from Canada who feels as you do. Even though I am an atheist I enjoy his videos. I will add the link below.
As for clothing what is a male’s clothing or a female’s clothing is like what is a man’s job or a female’s job in different countries. Heck Jesus wore robes … in other words dresses. It is all based on tradition. But what most of todays culture warriors don’t know is that until the early 1920s all kids boys and girls wore dresses until they were nearly 10 years old. Because so many kids died early parents did not invest in separate clothing until they knew the kids would live. As for the pink is for girls and blue for boys, that was reversed until the 1950s. These hyper culture warriors are fighting something they only have in their own minds.
It is grand how you and your family accepted your brother’s partner. It is grand. That is what real love looks like. You mention how you feel about yourself and yet you can have empathy for those who feel different from the cis straight norm. But sadly far too many can’t and if they don’t feel it then it must be wrong or not true. I don’t feel an attraction to XXX so it can’t be real type thing. I have had that thrown at me.
Angie you come here and vent anytime. I love reading them. Hugs
https://www.youtube.com/@revedtrevors4961
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Thanks for the link. Now to be able to answer with my laptop acting up! I have some old photos of family wearing dresses when they were young, including a few cousins. They are priceless and I try to keep them looking okay with my photo app. And when my daughter brought her twins home from Romania the girl was wearing blue and the boy pink, so the color thing seems to be mainly in this country. Personally cI always preferred lilac, green and yellow for the babies, or in the case of my kids, colors thqt went with their eyes, brown and tan for Don with his brown eyes and blue for Mike with his beautiful blur eyes; My own are hazel which to me is not any particular individual color. And all three of them wore gowns for their baptism, just like all of us did.
Oh yeah, you wanted me to remind you to tell you about your friend whose name I don[t remember right now. Too frustrated with this laptop which is acting up and my fingers constantly on the wrong keys. The air around me is turning a dark shade of blue with black overtones, depending on my language. Not exactly ladylike. So before anyone else hears me I had better send this and shut the monster down.
Love you. HUGS!’
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Hi Angie. Get some rest, we will be here in the next day. My friend is Kamyk. Pronounced Kamic. Long story short he had bad diverticulosis and he had cysts on his colon. They caused him pain for a long time and last year they ruptured sending him to the ER. He had many operations and was in and out of near death, but he recovered and was doing well that they thought he could go home to his apartment. But first he needed a few months in a nursing home to let the intestines / stomas heal. While there they neglected him so badly that he got a bed sore on his tailbone that went to the bone. He begged repeatedly and complained of the pain but no one listened, they were just warehousing him. They were there to take the government money not to care for him.
Skip ahead to now more than a year later he is having to go back into a nursing home as the facilities he is in won’t let him go home due to the pressure sore which will take another year to heal, he can’t go back to his apartment because the nursing home they are transferring him to took his SSI / Medicaid so he couldn’t pay for his apartment even though he was not to go there for another month. He can’t be released from the home unless he as a place to go to and he can’t get a place because they are taking all his income. It is a scam.
My friend is so distraught. He worked hard to learn to walk again after one of the surgeries left one of his legs not responding to his control. He did everything he could and was making such grand progress that he was ready to go home to his apartment even with the tail bone sore the doctor was going to release him, but in anticipation of getting him the weeks before he was to move to the nursing home they took his income, so when he went to pay his rent … his account was empty.
It is a scam but my friend is the victim and unable to do anything but be forced to move to this nursing home and hope he won’t be harmed further while waiting for government assistance for housing. Oh and the place he is in is Youngstown Ohio, a very depressed area with no jobs or much income, so these kinds of scam places do this, they yank the income of people and then do everything they can to keep them in the facility to keep the government money coming in.
So that is why I thought you would be interested in my friend’s story, it is so close to yours. Have a grand end of year, you need it. I really hope the new year is better for you. Again you deserve it. Hugs
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OMG! His story does sound a lot like mine, especially that pressure sore on the tailbone. I had total replacement surgery on my left shoulder in 2013 and was in the hospital with both arms immobilized for 3 days, during which I would ask for pain meds and a voice would say “okay” but they never arrived. Same with a bedpan, leaving me lying in the same position and a horrible bed situation the entire time, except for a brief moment when two aides came in and fussed at me for not going to the restroom. I just looked at them and asked which bed rail they wanted me to climb over to get there, so they helped me to it. By the time Mike came to take me home I had a horrendous sore that hurt like my leg does now. The doctor had released me and I asked them to bring mu papers so I could leave got the usual okay and waited, Two hours later I was still waiting when Dietary came in to pick up the lunch tray and one of the aides came charging in and berating the lady for not getting the trays earlier. That did it for me; I seldom raise my voice but that time I scared Mike when I yelled at the aide, telling her she should do her own job before she had the right to tell anyone else to do theirs. The nurse came that time and told me I had a drawer full of meds at tje desk. I told her it wasn’t for lack of asking for them.
The worst part is that the bedsore keeps coming back all these years later, just as sore and harder to get rid of each time.
I hate thhat your friemd is in a nursing hhome. I worked in one several years ago and know how bad they can be. Some of the people I worked with were caring but for the most part they were just there for the pay, and that wasn’t all that much. I was doing a two assist lady to bed when the aide I was working with that night suddenly dropped her side and left the room, leaving me to get that poor lady into bed alone and jerking my back out of whack in the bargain. That left me as the only aide on the floor with 30 people to take care of. I reported it all to the nurse who tried to help me but most of it I had to do alone. I was off work for 6 weeks with that injury and began putting applications in at other nursing homes, but ultimately stayed there because the people needed me. I did go to Hospice a year later after they hired 2 other aids that cared about the people.
I sure hope the new year is better for everyone; Love you. Hugs!
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Hi Angie. I am sorry that happened to you. I had to do a couple of weeks in a nursing home to get my state license. Then I moved to the ICUs. The people there worked two jobs to make ends meet. I hated how they treated the people. I spent my time on the Alzheimer wing as the workers there really did seem to care about the people. Hugs
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After I quit Hospice I did private duty with several people, almost all of them with Alzheimer’s or severe dementia. I loved it even more than Hospice and always had several requests for help. At one time I was trying to take care of 2 people at the same time, one on weekends and the other the rest of the weekdays. That was pretty intense since it didn’t leave any time at all for recharging and rest.
The time I spent with Hospice was rewarding except for the nurse I was assigned to. She never should have been working for Hospice because her heart wasn’t in the kind of work we did. Her carelessness ultimately caused one of my patients to die prematurely and the State Police were called in to investigate. She then tried to get me to do the paperwork even though it would be totally wrong and against all laws. The last morning she tried that I just got tired of it all and wrote a letter of resignation that I put in the Director’s box, put my personal items in a box and walked out of the building. I hated doing that, but I had given my home and cell numbers to several of my patients so they could call me in a crises situation and I would go to help them out. Several of them called me when the patient was dying and I always went to be with them as well as to call the nurse when the time was close. I’ve never known how I always knew it was time to call the family in, but I always knew and the ones who wanted to be there were. I just didn’t want anyone to die alone. I guess I’ve always hoped I would never be alone while also not wanting my kids to be there unless they wanted it. Not everyone was able to make that decision.
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Hi Angie. Glad you did not do as the nurse asked. If your state is like mine had you done any of her paperwork you would have lost your license and she could have blamed all things that she did wrong on you over stepping your bounds. Like you I love to provide aid and comfort to the people at the end of their lives or those that have lost their mental ability to function needing extra care. Hugs
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I would have lost my freedom in this state for doing what she wanted. That is a action that is punishable by jail time, especially since the patient died. Even if he had lived my freedom would have been questioned and it would have been in court with me as her pigeon. She tried that with me several times when she would screw up a visit or just be too lazy to do her own charting. I wasn’t all that crazy or caught up with my own work to take hers on. She could have done her job rather than tell the world how good she was at doing things and had plenty of time to do her charting.
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